"Oh, Rena!" said Elsa, stopping on the topmost step, "I forgot to tell you what happened to our Scotch shepherd-dog, Macbeth. You know Melker and I made friends with him the first day, but we were the only ones he'd be intimate with. Well, about two weeks ago an ugly old black dog came prowling around the house, and when Mac went up to it it bit him and then ran away to the mountains. Soon after that, we heard that a black dog with the hydrophobia had been killed up there, and Derrick and Jake said they believed it was the same one. Melker was in Philadelphia, and before he came home Mac went mad. Derrick shot at him out of the barn, and scared him so much that he ran off down the road, and we haven't heard anything about him since." Rena was bending over one of the jessamine-bushes, and seemed to be absorbed in removing some dead leaves. "Did your dog come this way, Elsa?" asked Mrs. Reinfelter nervously. "No, indeed," replied Elsa. "He ran up the road to the village. Good-by, Kuno. I won't forget you again." Brent followed her down the steps to assist her in mounting, but she sprang into the saddle without waiting for his help, and rode away at a brisk canter. The farmer and his wife conferred together anxiously about the two mad dogs, while their little son stood near them, listening intently to all they said. Unnoticed by them, Rena walked across the yard and passed around the corner of the house in the direction of the garden. Something in her manner caught Brent's attention, and in a little while he followed her. He found her sitting in the garden; and, though she tried to keep her face turned away from him, its death like pallor did not escape his sight. He sat down at her side and asked her to tell him what had happened. The sympathy in his voice went straight to her heart and won her whole confidence. "The warning was for me," she answered, "I'm not afraid to die; but father and mother and my little brother--" She did not sob or make any sound, but great tears welled from her eyes, and she was unable to go on. When she could speak again, she told him that on the day after the warning, when she found a black, shaggy-haired dog standing near the dairy door, she put out her hand, intending to stroke its head, but it caught her hand with its teeth, and left a wound from which the blood fell in large drops. The dog ran away in the direction of the Barndollar farm, and she bound up her hand and managed to keep the wound from being noticed while it was healing, for she was anxious to avoid increasing the anxiety her parents already felt. Only a slight scar now remained; but Elsa's account of the mad dogs left no doubt in her mind that she was in imminent danger of a frightful death.